Outsiders Help Shape Future For Orlando

Of The City's Volunteer Advisory Boards, 17 Of 22 Include Members Who Live Elsewhere.

July 1, 2001|By Mark Schlueb, Sentinel Staff Writer

Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood and the City Council rely on more than 25 volunteer advisory boards for recommendations on everything from affordable housing to zoning, and often rubber-stamp those recommendations without question.

But just who's making those recommendations? City records show that more than one in four members of the city's advisory boards don't even live in Orlando.

Of Orlando's 22 advisory boards, 17 have members living outside city limits. And when the mayor and City Council have been asked to appoint volunteers to represent Orlando on four regional boards over the past several years, they've picked nonresidents for three of them.

Some worry that people who don't vote or pay property taxes in Orlando have too much influence over decisions that affect those who do.

"I certainly would feel a lot better if somebody who was living in the city was making decisions for my neighborhood," said Sue Macnamara, a local activist and coordinator of the District 4 Neighborhood Coalition.

Many other Central Florida cities and counties either require residency or historically appoint only residents. Those include Orange County, Seminole County, Lake County, Osceola County, Altamonte Springs, Lake Mary, Longwood, Oviedo and Winter Park. Some municipalities, such as Kissimmee, say board members must either live, work or own property within city limits.

In some cases, Orlando's numbers are glaring. On the Human Relations Board, which investigates complaints of discrimination in housing and employment, only one of the five members lives in Orlando. The same is true for the board that hears appeals of city-building and fire-code rulings.

The Downtown Development Board's five members dole out millions of dollars in city tax dollars every year to encourage economic growth downtown, but only two of them actually live in the city. That board has specific rules that say its members must either live or work downtown, and several members are downtown businessmen.

In all, 49 of the 172 members of Orlando's advisory boards -- 28 percent -- live outside the city.

The pattern also holds true for some of the city's special committees. The Redistricting Advisory Board is redrawing City Council boundaries based on the latest population figures, a task that will determine who tens of thousands of Orlando residents will be able to vote for in the next City Council election. But four of its nine members can't even vote in city elections, because they don't live there.

Orlando's code mandates that the rosters of a few city boards, such as the powerful Municipal Planning Board, be composed entirely of Orlando residents. But most boards have no such requirement.

Rather than a problem, the mayor sees the situation as an advantage.

"It's to our benefit, because we're looking for people who have the interest, people who have the expertise in certain areas," Hood said. "A lot of those people may not live within the city limits, but they work within the city limits, and the decisions that are made certainly impact their lives."

When former Orange County Chairman Mel Martinez took office in 1998, he didn't like the number of noncounty residents serving on Orange County's advisory committees.

Appointing board members from outside Orange County gave the impression of impropriety, he said at the time. Now, only six of the county's 242 volunteers, or 2.4 percent, live outside Orange.

In Orlando, people interested in serving on an advisory board fill out an application. When there's a vacancy, the Nominating Board -- itself a volunteer committee -- culls the applications and picks three to forward to the mayor. The mayor picks one; appointments generally require confirmation by the City Council.

Jack Lord Jr., an attorney who chairs the Nominating Board, said his committee considers where a volunteer lives.

"It definitely influences our thought process, but some other things are more important," he said. "There is certain occupational expertise or background that could easily trump where someone lives."

Stocking city boards with nothing but city residents would be ideal, Hood said, but it's often difficult to find enough knowledgeable homeowners willing to volunteer their time.

But don't tell that to Macnamara, the neighborhood activist. She has volunteered to serve on a zoning board repeatedly, she said, and the mayor has passed over her application at least four times.